One woman’s doctor refused to remove her IUD, telling her that it would be a “disaster” if she got pregnant. Others were told some women just aren’t meant to be mothers.

Canadian researchers say that amid a flurry of press about the dangers of excess fat during pregnancy, overweight and obese women are being made to feel they’re “disgusting” or “bad mothers” for putting their fetuses at risk.

In interviews, overweight women reported dreading pre-natal appointments. One was refused fertility treatments until she dropped 60 pounds. Another, sent to a specialist after her family doctor suspected a hormonal disorder was at the root of her infertility, was told bluntly her problem was she was “fat.” One woman said her doctor never performed internal exams. “I’m under the impression he would prefer not to touch me.”

The research was based on interviews with just 24 women in two Canadian cities. But the authors say the women’s experiences hint at so-called soft eugenic practices to keep obese women from reproducing.

Doctors have legitimate reasons to warn women of the complications related to excess maternal weight, they acknowledge. However, much of the obesity “risk talk” is sensationalized, moralizing and shouldn’t position heavy women as “always-already diseased and dangerous to their child,” they write in the latest issue of Social Science & Medicine.

Larger women, they argue, can have perfectly healthy, incident-free pregnancies and births.

“We’re certainly not trying to say that any of the healthcare providers that are referred to in the study is actually a eugenicist,” co-first-author, Andrea Bombak, an assistant professor at Central Michigan University said in an interview.

“What we’re trying to say is that anytime we refuse care in these areas, or potentially limit people’s care, we could be unintentionally and inadvertently echoing some of these histories that we’ve seen in the past about who is it that society would prefer to reproduce — and who they would prefer to not have reproduce,” she said.

About a third of women in Canada entering pregnancy are overweight or obese.

According to the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, obese pregnant women are at increased risk for miscarriage, high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, and are more likely to give birth to babies with congenital abnormalities. Obesity is also one of the biggest drivers of caesarean sections. “Overweight women do not deliver well,” Dr. Jennifer Blake, the society’s chief executive, told a senate committee studying obesity last year. In the U.S., obesity is contributing to a doubling and tripling in maternal mortality rates, Blake said.

But Bombak and her colleagues argue the science is contradictory, with some studies showing little fetal risk or infant fatness linked with a mother’s bodyweight.

The researchers interviewed 24 mostly white, middle-class women in two mid-sized unnamed Canadian cities about their experiences while trying to conceive, while pregnant or while giving birth. The study was a pilot to a larger study now underway.

Many women had positive experiences. But many others also described being made to feel as if they were “disgusting” or unfit to be mothers. In an earlier paper based on the same interviews, one woman recounted a fertility doctor telling her, “Gals your size, OK, mortality rates are higher. So I go ahead and intervene, help you get pregnant here. Then you go down to (a birthing ward). And then, boom! Pulmonary embolism.”

The doctor who refused to remove the IUD likely believed it was the medically correct thing to do, said co-first author Deborah McPhail, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. (The woman eventually had the device removed by a doctor at Planned Parenthood.)

But, overall, women resented being viewed as “bad mothers, or bad potential mothers, because they were taking care of themselves the best they could, the way most pregnant women do,” McPhail said. “They said, ‘but I am exercising as much as I should be; I am trying to be healthy.’ And they felt that wasn’t being taken seriously.’”

“There was a real dissonance between the experience they felt they should have had, and the experience they did have. And there was just a lot of anger and a lot of sadness around that.”

When my assistant said there was a call from the White House, I picked up, said 'Hello' and started to ask if this was a prank

This Week's Flyers

Comments

Postmedia is pleased to bring you a new commenting experience. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. Visit our community guidelines for more information.